Lightweight plastic bottles or containers have been accepted for containing a myriad of liquids from drinking water to cleaning solutions. The plastic containers are customarily made in a machine which expels the containers in a random orientation. Modern day filling machines require that containers to be filled be aligned in a vertical attitude. Machines for orientating articles of this type are well known. A machine typical of this class of machines is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,368, entitled, “Article Orientating Apparatus” issued Mar. 21, 1972, and invented by the inventor of the instant improvement, John C. Nalbach. He is also the inventor of the subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,872, entitled, “Apparatus for Orientating and Feeding Articles” issued May 16, 1972; U.S. Pat. No. 3,948,386, entitled, “Apparatus for Orientating and Feeding Articles”; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,965, entitled “Article Orientating Apparatus” issued May 2, 1989.
The speed of filling machines has progressively increased so that it is necessary to increase the speed of availability of containers in a vertical attitude. It has been found that the lightweight containers being discharged from an unscrambling machine have a tendency to tip and fall over unless each container is held in a vertical attitude long enough to stabilize the container as it leaves the unscrambling machine. The generally accepted construction for an unscrambling machine is one which initially aligns the containers in a circle end-to-end attitude and rotates the containers to a location where they are positioned in a vertical attitude and aligned with each other. The end-to-end circular orientation of the bottles requires rotation of the unscrambler at a high rate to increase the rate of output of aligned containers. The increased rate of rotation increases cyntrifical forces which must be overcome to stabilize the containers in a vertical attitude.